Rules
of Golf 1744
Here
are the original rules of Golf, as written by the Honorable
Company of Edinburgh Golfers in 1744.
-
You
must tee your ball within a club's length of the hole.
-
Your
tee must be on the ground.
-
You
are not to change the ball which you strike off the tee.
-
You
are not to remove stones, bones or any break club for the
sake of playing your ball, except upon the fair green, and
that only within a club's length of the ball.
-
If
your ball comes among watter, or any wattery filth, you are
at liberty to take out your ball and bringing it behind the
hazard and teeing it, you may play it with any club and allow
your adversary a stroke for so getting out your ball.
-
If
your balls be found anywhere touching one another you are
to lift the first ball till you play the last.
At
holling you are to play your ball honestly at the hole, and
not to play upon your adversary's ball, not lying in your
way to the hole.
-
If
you should lose your ball, by its being taken up, or any other
way, you are to go back to the spot where you struck last
and drop another ball and allow your adversary a stroke for
the misfortune.
-
No
man at holling his ball is to be allowed to mark his way to
the hole with his club or anything else.
-
If
a ball be stopp'd by any person, horse, dog, or any thing
else, the ball so stopp'd must be played where it lyes.
-
If
you draw your club in order to strike and proceed so far in
the stroke as to be bringing down your club, if then your
club should break in any way, it is to be accounted a stroke.
-
He
whose ball lyes farthest from the hole is obliged to play
first.
-
Neither
trench, ditch, or dyke made for the preservation of the links,
nor the Scholar's Holes or the soldier's lines shall be accounted
a hazard but the ball is to be taken out, teed and play'd
with any iron club.
NOTE
: The "Scholar's Holes and "Soldier's Lines" were
seemingly hazards relating to the links course at Leith, but were
included with St Andrews rules.
|
